New Year Predictions

Apparently Marty's parents used to do this thing every New Year's Eve where they would melt lead with a torch and then drop the hot lead into a bucket of cold water.  The melted lead suddenly hardens when it hits water and then there is typically some sort of shape the lead takes.  They would pass around this piece of melted and then reformed lead and try to decipher what shape it took and what it might mean about their coming year.  Each person in the family would get a turn so therefore each person would have a New Year's prediction for their life.

We had done this several times with our kids in Seattle and I always thought it was just a thing Marty's parents thought of.  Well apparently it is a German thing because I kept seeing little kits with this same activity just much easier and safer (6 or so pieces of wax covered in silver coating along with a special spoon for

melting.  You simple put one of the small wax figures in the spoon and once the wax is melted and fully liquid you pour it quickly into a glass of cold water.  Lo and behold the same thing happens as happened to the molten lead. 

When we were out at the hardware store Obi (this, by the way is the German equivalent to Home Depot in every way including everything being trimmed in orange. Except at the German Home Depot called Obi, the staff are SUPER grumpy and unhelpful and things are way overpriced.)

  But anyway, we were there buying lights and some hard ware to hang up photos and Josie saw one of the packets and convinced us to buy one.
The day before school started we did our predictions.

Marty's on the left and mine on the right 

Marty's came out looking like a calf or a cow or a lamb.  We didn't know how to interpret this.  Maybe he will de-stress in the coming year and be calm like these big calm animals.  Josie thought maybe he would start producing milk????
Mine came out and I swear it looks like a Spanish or flamenco dancer with long flowing hair and a flowing skirt.  Of course this must mean more trips to Spain in my future 😉
Benjamin's was kind of leave like.  We thought maybe he would do more things outside or he would climb more trees in the coming year.
Josie's looked kind of like a bunny which made us think maybe she will get her longed for dog this year?? 

Benjamin's left and Josie's right

We had a couple of extra pieces of wax
so the kids did another one.  Benjamin's bottom left and
Josie's bottom right.  We thought they looked like
Benjamin's - a warrior (oh great!) and Josie's like the country of Italy (upside down)